Five Things I Don't Want My Children To Know About Me

Well I only have the one girl at the moment, who's three and called Emily. I thought I'd join in the Friday Club Carnival - this time they want to know five things I don't want her to know about me.

1. I find it difficult to be direct and end up lying to people. Like the other day I was at a kid's birthday party at a tram museum. We just went round and round on these old trams with Emily and a bunch of overexcited three year olds high on E additives, when this old man started talking to me. He was as old as the hills, wore bottle neck glasses and carried a black satchel that looked like it had been made some time around the Second World War. At first I thought he was just your common or garden paedo because he was on his own, going round and round with this gaggle of kids. But when he started talking to me I realised he was something much worse - a tram spotter. He told me he was mad about trams but his real passion was underground systems and that he'd recently gone on a holiday to Paris and had taken five hundred pictures down the tunnels. He opened his satchel and pulled out a stack of well thumbed pictures, most of which were pretty black since they'd been taken in tunnels. I told him I'd love to have a peek but that I was legally blind and could only see grey shapes so they'd be wasted on me. A total lie but we what would you have done?

2. I spent a good many years working as a stewardess on superyachts yet get terribly sea sick. Some of my worst vomiting experiences were related to tequila and bad sea sickness. There is nothing worse than that combination. One minute I was slamming tequilas with the crew the next thing I knew it was 13 hours later and I had no recollection of what had happened. I was thankfully fully clothed but lying in a pool of vomit in my bunk - bizarrely I found a pretty good tattoo on my right arm which said 'Rookie Boozer' - I panicked that I'd impulsively had myself tattooed while drunk, before realising it was just done with marker.

3. I once did a disastrous home perm that ended up looking a lot like that woman from T-Pau. I believe I have destroyed all the photographic evidence. I believe that perms are evil and don't want Emily to know that perms exist for as long as possible.

4. I am incapable of putting together IKEA furniture. I know that in this feminist age I am meant to be able to. I just can't get my head around all those diagrams. My boyfriend loves putting them together so why not leave him to it? I just dread the day when Emily says 'But why don't you put that Bjorn Wardrobe together mum?' and I will have to reveal that I don't know a one end of a Bjorn from the other.

5. I often sort of cheat at meals. I take those ready made ones and transfer them onto a baking sheet and add a few herbs and then pretend to my boyfriend and Emily I've been slaving away for hours. I just don't seem to have enough time to go all Nigella Lawson. When I'm not working I'm writing this book and it all takes its toll!

So tell me some stuff you don't want your kids to know about. I promise to keep it under my hat.

Join in the Carnival Fun here: